Übergang (Transition)

The transition (*Übergang*) is one of the fundamental forms of movement in Hegel's logic. It designates the process by which a category or determination necessarily passes over into another, because it runs up against its own inner limit. The transition is not externally added but springs from the immanent development of the matter itself. In the logic of being, transition is the characteristic form of movement: one determination vanishes and is replaced by another (for example, Being -- Nothing -- Becoming). Unlike the shining (*Scheinen*) of the logic of essence---where determinations mutually constitute one another---and unlike the development of the logic of the concept---where the concept explicates itself---the transition is marked by the vanishing of its starting point. The transition, however, is not a temporal sequence but a logical necessity: what a category is in itself shows itself precisely by its passing over into its other.